May I ask you something?" I say. "Why do you read books, when you could be outside, living a million different adventures every day?" "Because you can always count on a book to stay the same. EVerything else changes when you least expect it," she replies, bitter. "Families split apart, and nothing's forever. In books, you always know what's coming next. There are no surprises.

Maybe if you spend your life pretending you're on a movie set, you don't ever have to admit that the walls are made out of paper and the food is plastic and the words in your mouth aren't really yours.

Just because you didn't speak the facts out loud didn't erase their existence. Silence was just a quieter way to lie.

An item that looks perfectly normal on the surface might only be disguised.

Writing is total grunt work. A lot of people think it's all about sitting and waiting for the muse. I don't buy that. It's a job. There are days when I really want to write, days when I don't. Every day I sit down and write.

If you had grown up with me, this is one of the things I would have tried to teach you: Marry a man who loves you more than you love him. Because I have both now, and when it is the other way around, there is no spell in the world that can even out the balance.

I never lose sight of the fact that before I was a writer, I was a teacher. I still am. My classroom's just gotten a little bigger.